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Utah community still reflects on drug overdose of 13-year-old boy

By Staff Writer

The December drug overdose of a Utah teen still has a large impact on the way a community views substance abuse, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

In December, Angie Watson went up to her 13-year-old son's room to wake him up. When he did not move she frantically called police who said her son had suffered from a drug overdose. A bottle of OxyCodone was found in his room.

It was not the first time Watson was made aware of her son's drug problem, the media outlet states. Months earlier, the mother caught her son buying hallucinogenic drugs. She grounded him and searched for somewhere where he could get help, but she said she could not find any programs for young addicts.

For mothers like Watson, therapeutic schools can be helpful. These facilities have a staff who is trained to deal with teens struggling with a variety of drug addictions.

As Utah authorities reported seeing an increase in the number of students using prescription pills, the national data is also high. According to the most recent data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, almost 5 percent of high school seniors said they take OxyContin, while almost 10 percent said they use Vicodin. 

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